Modern telecommunications networks offer users a vast array of options for connecting and interacting with one another. In addition to choices provided by telecommunications providers themselves, users can now utilize a variety of independently developed products and services that run “on top” of the infrastructure maintained by the telecommunications industry. These independently developed products and services are commonly referred to as over-the-top (OTT) services because these services are not developed with a specific telecommunications provider's network in mind, but rather are designed to interconnect users via a provider-independent platform.
With the proliferation of smartphone, social networks, OTT applications and self-serve application stores, users are increasingly creating their own customized bundles of applications, made up of applications from the telecom, enterprise and Internet domains. Within this disjointed application model, user identification, authentication and authorization has become a difficult management problem, forcing users to manage a large number of individual usernames and passwords, and having to log in multiple times each day, as they invoke different applications. Furthermore, they have to enter their personal information and manage this across all of the application domains that they access.
To address these issues, many of the large OTT sites and social networks have implemented delegated authorization mechanisms, which allow a user to login once to an OTT property, and then to use this login as a single-sign-on mechanism to other applications, and for authorizing other applications to access their personal data. This provides improved user experience for end users, and encourages them to remain anchored and active within the OTT community. These evolving mechanisms present a real problem for the telecom operators, since it encourages users to anchor their application experience in the OTT domains and social networks, which creates a barrier for operators when introducing new telecom hosted applications.
Accordingly, a need exists for methods, systems, and computer readable media for bridging user authentication, authorization, and access across internet and telecom domains.